Fodor's may use your email address to send you relevant information on site updates, account changes, and offers. For more information about your privacy and protection, please review our full Privacy Policy.

Cars in France

Just some statements/thoughts about renting cars in France. Hopefully, they may help someone. My husband and I just returned from our trip, where we rented a car for 4 days to drive around the Cote d'Azur and Provence.

1- We reserved an automatic, which is totally different than what we are used to in the US. It is more like a semi-automatic. Only has 3 gears - reverse, Auto, and neutral.( It also seems to have various gears if you choose to use the stickshift.) You have to park in neutral and put on parking brake. Also, it changed gears like a manual transmission, and always jerks backwards before going forwards. I give my husband a lot of credit for safely driving us around without hitting or backing into something. It seems to be the norm with cars rented in France and Italy. I don't recall having this problem when we rented a car in Germany a number of years ago.

2- Gas. Many, if not most of the stations are unmanned, and our US credit card doesn't work in the pumps because we don't have a pin number. We had a really tought time finding a station with an attendent, especially on a Sunday.

The transmission behavior has to do with the model of the car.
The gas pump woes for US credit card holders has been discussed ad-nauseum in this forum as well at travel sites, such as https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/money/chip-pin-cards. However, in my experience, a lot of first timers automatically rent a car because that is what they do at home without researching the differences in driving environment. Warnings are of little value mostly because first timers don't even bother finding out if there are differences.

I also experienced that even if I had a chance to mention problems using a rental car on certain type of itinerary, the reaction has been, "I am a good driver, I know how to drive, this is the fastest and cheapest way to travel." Only to come back raging mad because they got hit with big traffic fines, losing time getting lost, having to walk a lot because only parking lot they could find was so far away from the destinations.

For people who know how to drive stick shift but who are afraid of the specific aspect that scares a lot of people -- starting on a hill -- it is useful to know that a lot of the new models have a rollback safeguard that makes it all so much easier.

The gas stations are manned in France. They make money with the snacks they sell...
All of them. At least I don't recall one which was fully automated.
They do close on week-end and at night (hours can vary).

my experience is that some stay open over the weekend but without staff, certainly those near major airports do. What I tend to do is, when I pick up a car I ask the staff where to fill up at the weekend. These tend to be on a back road and will be staffed (but I tend to check).

On our recent trip through France we didn't use or see a single manned station. All fully automatic. Admittedly we weren't particularly looking for manned stations, and used supermarket pumps a lot because they are so much cheaper, but even so we didn't come across any when we couldn't find a supermarket pump.
Only on the way home, when we filled up in Luxembourg (and the amopunt of litres was more than the amount euros ) did we find a manned station.

I am interested in the car that Debbielynn rented.
We had automatics for years and they all worked perfectly normally. Sadly our current vehicles aren't automatics, but when we downsize the car we will probably go for one again, and I want to know what to avoid!

There are a lot of unmanned gas stations in France, particularly when you are traveling off of the autoroute or outside of Paris. Often on the weekend of during holiday periods, unmanned stations are the only way you can purchase gas; plan ahead.

A chip & signature card, as are most of the US issued chip cards, can be universally used at unmanned gas stations. I have a PenFed chip & signature card that has never been refused at an unmanned gas station. The trick is to find a card issuer offering off-line PINs (cards with the PIN burned into the card).

Unfortunately, most US cards offer on-line PINs and few unmanned gas stations in France have on-line capability.

Sometimes I wonder who lives in my countries.
I spend half my time in France and half in Belgium, the rest in Europe and 2-3 weeks a year overseas (Asia mostly).
I drive 20 000 kms a year in each country. Obviously I need fuel.

About all our stations are automated but manned during the day.

I've never seen, even in supermarkets, a station without a booth. But the boot is manned during 'normal' hours.

Odd, we travelled down through Lorraine to the Camargue, back up through Provence and Alsace and whilst the booth was still standing all had signs saying it was permanently closed and to use the machines.
Even in small villages that still had a pump it was automatic.

Driving down the west coast of France only 4 weeks ago, the supermarket fuel points both had closed booths, big surprise on entering Spain was that the fuel was put in by a Human (first time I'd seen that in 18 years).

I'm having fun with this, and the timing is good since I'm just now doing our trip accounting.

We got gas 9 times in France in September, paid cash 4 times and used a credit card Visa 5 times because my husband wanted to try out the chip and pin. But at every stop, paying cash to a human was a possibility.

I can see that there might be a move toward credit-only pumps, but it has not reached the Super-Us/Hyper-Us/Leclercs in the area where we traveled.

As in past years, an open supermarket doesn't necessarily mean that the gas cash booth is also open. And on Sunday afternoons and overnight, it's credit only.

All of the autoroute stations are manned 24/7. Hypermarket and supermarket stations are manned during the business hours of the store.

As for the other stations, it is important to note that Total Access and Esso Express stations are not manned and are therefore cheaper than Total or Esso stations, as long as you have the adequate chip + PIN card. You only find these stations on 'ordinary' roads or in cities. I am lucky enough to have an Esso Express station only 2 metro stops from where I live, so when I fill up my rental car before returning it, I currently save about 0.20€ per liter compared to the manned stations in Paris.

I've rented several automatics in France and they were fine, it isn't some special French car that acts weird. One was a VW and was just like any VW in the US, one was a Mercedes (I really liked that car), and another an Alfa Romeo. That one was a semi and I did really like that -- you had to shift gears but there was no clutch. I knew how to drive a manual, so just hadn't for many years and thus didn't want to rent one, but understand how to operate it. I guess some people might not who knew nothing about manuals.

I don't get the comment about how the AC only had 3 gears -- auto, reverse and neutral. What more do you need? Given the comments about how it had other gears if you chose to shift it (?), I presume it was like my Alfa Romeo. But that's only one brand, not some special thing about all cars in France. My Alfa Romeo didn't act badly, though, I really liked it and you had to shift it, it wasn't optional, as I recall, if you wanted to get out of first gear.

I will restate that none of the supermarket pumps were manned. We went when they were open so I could shop while he filled up. Most didn't even have the kiosk amy more but those that did made it clear that it was card only 24/7.

I can quite believe Debbielynn had trouble finding a manned station.

As o the automatic, some also offer a 1st and 2nd gear, in addition to D, N R and P, certainly in the US.
Very useful for steep hills, as it saves your brakes.

just look at the links I gave you can see both types in the street views. I could provide more but you can do your own searching.
BTW Elan stations, which are usually found in villages are the most expensive. There there is usually man to help you. And cash can be paid too.

Still waiting to hear what sort of cock-eyed car this was that had two types of gear shifts but only 3 gears.

No - a preflight check is just like a pilot checking a plane before take off. You try everything to see that it works - locks, wipers, signals, flasher, trunk, how to refuel, that it has gas, oil, etc.

We have been given one car we couldn't refuel since we couldn't get the little door to open. The attendant at the station couldn't either and eventually there were 2 other drivers trying to help before one figured it out (it required doing two things at once). Another time we were given a car that had no cover on the fuse box. When we complained they just took one off another car/same model. Leaving whoever got that car without a cover. This is just in addition to checking the whole car for dents and dings.

And we always drive around the lot to be sure how transmission and brakes work.

Caveat: we also do the same thing if renting a car in the US, since we have also had a couple of problems there. I was once given an almost brand new Mustang with a hand brake that didn't work. And the hotel parking lot was a fairly steep hill - so I had to go around the side to park.

Boy, did I open a can of worms! Some of these responses make us sound like a couple of morons!

The car was a Peugoet- don't remember the model. We rented it from Hertz. You could drive it manually or automatic. In automatic, it only had Neutral, drive (called A ) and reverse. No park. I thought I was clear in the original post.

Yes, we've driven many times in Europe, yes, we did drive it around the lot, no Greg, we are not "raging mad" about our experience. My husband is from Europe and knows how to drive there. We enjoy the freedom of movement that a car gives us. Just trying to offer advice for others.

***My husband is from Europe and knows how to drive there*** If he was from Europe he would or should tell you we are not to be classed as one nation. Europeans have different isochromatics, all relating to one's country of birth.
If it was a Peugeot 108 automatic then it is going to be a very small city car, which is very slow on the open road.0 to 100 km/h in around 15 seconds. The engine is said to be noisy too. Certainly agree with you that this is not a good hire car.